Techno Page

Button actions

Then again, those of you who have already experimented with symbols would have figured that out by yourselves by now. 

This week it is going to be buttons and only buttons. There are so many cool things you can do with buttons that, you will have to experiment with them and be creative to learn most of the tricks.

Buttons in flash are symbols by definition and bear all the characteristics common to all symbols, but they have special behaviours and can perform tasks that other symbols aren't capable of. These tasks are called 'actions' (duhh) and you can access these 'actions' in a number of ways. You are about to enter high ground here because most of the Hi-Fi stuff done in flash have a lot to do with these 'Actions'. 

The use of these actions in a flash movie is also referred to as 'Action Scripting', but as Hi-Fi as it may sound (and look) these are quite simple techniques, even for the average users.

First we will start off by drawing a button. As with any symbol, there are two ways you can approach this. You can either choose Insert>New Symbol (Ctrl+F8) from the Menu bar and then choose 'Button' as the Behaviour type of your symbol, or draw your button on the stage and choose Insert>Convert to symbol (F8) and then choose 'Button' as the behaviour type. 

Once you are in the symbol editing mode, you will notice the difference in the timeline. The timeline will have four primary frames named 'Up', 'Over', 'Down' and 'Hit'. They are normal frames in every way, other than the fact that they specify the way the button should appear on the stage at different times, specifically; when the mouse pointer is not over the button, when it is hovering over the button, when the button is pressed and the hit area or the area in which the button will be active.

Insert keyframes in each of the specific frames and change the colours or/and the shape of the button the way you want it to look at the different stages. You do not have to worry about how the button should look in the 'Hit' stage, because there you are just required to colour a specific area which will be invisible to the users. If you need any clarification about this please do write in to technopage_lk@yahoo.com. Now you have made your first flash button. You may go back to your stage by double clicking outside the button or by clicking on Scene1 just above the timeline on the top right-hand corner.

Now you may find (to your disappointment) that your button doesn't work the way you wanted it to... I mean it doesn't work at all! If so, choose Control>Enable Simple Buttons (Ctrl+Alt+B) from the menu. Your button will work now, but it will take a relatively long time to respond. If you want to see how your button will really work, go to Control>Test Movie from the menu bar.

We will cover 'Button Actions' next time around. Even though it may be out-of-place to explain this fact to you, I must mention that there are two types of actions that you must not confuse with each other. They are "Button Actions" and "Frame Actions". What we will discuss here are Button Actions, as we will discuss Frame Actions once we actually start making flash movies. To demonstrate what I am talking about, right-click on your button and notice the 'Actions' option, then right-click on frame in the timeline and notice the 'Actions' option there too. What you need to remember is that, even though they have the same actions, they are entirely different in the way they work and affect your movies. So for the time-being, only experiment with the button actions.

So until next week Improve your Interest in the Instruction, of even the Infinitesimal Information, on your way to becoming a master of Flash.

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